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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2017
We consider the propagation of low-amplitude MHD waves in partially-ionised plasmas. Ion-neutral drift (ambipolar diffusion) can lead to significant variations in the deuterium fractionation ratios of several molecules (e.g. HCO+ and N2H+) on spatial scales of between a few hundredths and a few tenths of a parsec, depending upon the fractional ionisation of the plasma. It is possible that interstellar Alfvén waves could be detected by molecular spectroscopy and that these waves may produce other small-scale abundance gradients in molecular clouds.